kp, how much has that got to do with the grades you're climbing though? As a crap climber, I really don't care how good Serpentine is, because I'm a long way from even thinking about getting on it. To say that Weaveworld is the only world-class at the grade sport route at grade 25 or less in the entire Grampians? Don't get me wrong, I think it's a useful addition to my guidebook collection, but I'll be treating it as having a 3-star system.

Really, weaveworld got 4 stars? Now, I love the gallery, it's great fun, in a beautiful spot but a trip to the Red will quickly demonstrate it's a tiny little cliff of that genre.

Life gets a little difficult when talking about world class sport routes, because KP has half a point - sport routes lend themselves to being better at harder grades. I haven't been to the lost world, but malcolm raves about some 23 and 25 there. And to be perfectly honest, I suspect Weaveworld is as good at its grade as Eye of the Tiger is at its, with the proviso, i cant climb eye of the tiger. but youknow, anything we manage to do at our limit is likely to seem far better to us than something we just waltz up unless it really stands out like the Araps easy routes do. Single pitch sport probably isn't going to do that.

When you get off the sport routes, the gramps has mindblowing moderate trad galore. Simplton, Heretic, Hard times, that 21 who's name I've forgotten at rosea, stuff at asses ears and mt difficult, all those forementioned things at Bundaleer, not to mention basilisk direct finish, that is a 4 star contender for sure!

Neil disagreed, Basilisk Direct only got one star. But if we all liked the same things it'd get kinda boring.

I'll agree that sport seems better at the harder grades... that I can climb. I just think that if you're going to give out stars, it should be subjective for that grade, rather than trying to compare it to the hardest route you can do.

On 13/04/2013 nmonteith wrote:>I'm beginning to understand why some guide book authors don't use stars!

I think any star system is better than none though Neil, after working off a couple of no star guides recently - one of which claimed that everyroute in it was 2 or 3 stars in the comprehensive guidebook, then mentioned a bit later that there were a few fillers because they were in the area - so until you went and looked at the cliff and did some guesswork, you had no idea which ones were just the fillers.

Most of the time, we are just carrying on about a tiny bit here or there and generally agree they are good routes. Except Basilisk for DF finish, which is incontestably the best value 16 in the Gramps!

On 13/04/2013 Wendy wrote:>I know it's terribly unfashionable of me, but I don't rate the climbing>on Taipan that much.

And yet, somewhat ironically, if you replaced all of the existing routes on that wall (and their perfect funky moves between beautiful slopey holds) with a whole bunch of horrible flaring bumcracks, you'd be on here crapping on about how it's the best crag in the galaxy!

You could do both the routes on which I've belayed you..........they're only too hard when you're in whiney mode, just snap into badarse mode and it'll be fine.

On 13/04/2013 Dave J wrote:>At the risk of further derailing Neils thread...>>I personally wouldn't put Mr J in the top 25% of routes on that wall and>I think if you just went out and did a few more of the classics on Taipan>you'd be in a better position to comment.

To say Mr Joshua is not in the top 25% of routes on that wall is laughable. There are 72 routes/projects listed on Taipan in Neil's guide, that means you need to list 18 routes that are better than it. I think you will have some trouble.

>Its true they're mostly not 25>but some walls just don't lend themselves to that particular grade (the>best routes on Tiger wall aren't 25 either and if someone was banging on>about Sunday Best being the best line on the wall because it was 25 when>they hadnt gone and done any of the classic 8s and 10s it would be hard>to take them seriously too).

It's true that Taipan doesn't lend itself to to grade 25, but the reality is that Mr Joshua is absolutely brilliant pitch at the grade. If you took out those rests, it wouldn't be grade 25! Even these supposedly better routes still have flaws which Mr J doesn't have... For example on Serpentine you have to climb a long traversy, shitty bolted grade 24 to even reach the main pitch. Cardigan Street doesn't even have a climbable first pitch - you need to solo to the top of the cliff and then rap in. As for climbs with rests - well I bet Feather Boa has few of them given the first part of the main pitch is a SLAB! And did we mention another long shitty traverse just to reach the start of Feather Boa? I seem to recall that Groovy has some pretty significant rests interspersed between harder climbing.>>Out of curiosity have you been back and actually done Mr J?

Well I recall doing the first pitch with Gordy many years ago (early 90s). We went there one day and I climbed it and he failed on it. Then later that summer Gordy (with Simon Carter) ticked Serpentine - much to my amazement.